"In Stock" and "Out of Stock" options in Magento 2 store are important components of your inventory management. They give your customers information about the availability of the products.
Thus, it's recommended to display Magento 2 product stock status to improve customers shopping experience and show a professional, customer-oriented approach.
In Magento, you can set up stock for each product separately and configure the catalog stock options for all products at once. So, today, you'll learn how to do this.
Post Contents [hide]
To manage Magento 2 stock you need to navigate to Stores > Configuration > Catalog > Inventory.
Configure Magento 2 Stock Options
Magento 2 Stock Options apply to the entire product catalog. To configure it:
1. Enable the Decrease Stock When Order is Placed option in order to decrease the number of products in stock once someone purchases the product.
2. Enable the Set Items' Status to be In Stock When Order is Cancelled option to increase the number of products in stock once the purchase is canceled.
Note: if you create refunds in Magento 2, you can also choose to return refunded items to stock.
3. Choose whether to Display Out of Stock Products on the storefront.
4. Set the number of products that are left which will trigger the appearance of the Only X left message in the Only X left Threshold field.
Note: the default value is 0 which means no message should appear. However, if you set 20, "Only X left" message will appear when only 20 items of a certain product are left.
5. Choose if you want to Display Products Availability in Stock on Storefront in a form of IN STOCK and OUT OF STOCK messages.
Configure Magento 2 Product Stock Options
Based on the name, Magento 2 product stock options are applied to the individual products.
To configure product stock options in Magento:
1. Enable the Manage Stock option to control and keep track of the number of items currently in stock.
2. Select the way you'd like to manage Backorders.
Backorder in other words is a Preorder — when customer purchases something even when the product is out of stock. In this case, funds are authorized and captured once the product is purchased and then a product is shipped or delivered to the customer once it is back in stock.
There are three options available for you in this field:
- No Backorders - you won't accept backorders if the product is out of stock.
- Allow Qty Bellow 0 - you will start accepting backorders when the quantity of the product falls below 0.
- Allow Qty Bellow 0 and Notify Customer - you will start accepting backorders when the quantity of product falls below 0, but... you will also notify customer about the possibility of making a backorder.
3. Enter the Maximum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart to determine the number of products per one order.
4. Enter the Out-of-Stock Threshold to define the stock level at which the product is considered out of stock and the number of backorders allowed to be placed once the product is out of stock.
Note: zero number (0) allows an indefinite number of backorders, negative number (-3) defines backorders allowed up to that number.
5. Define the Minimum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart for different customer groups.
6. Set the Notify for Quantity Below option to define the stock level at which the "Out of Stock" notification should be displayed.
7. Enable Qty Increments to allow products to be sold in increments.
8. Enable the Automatically Return Credit Memo Item to Stock, if you want the product included in credit memos to be returned to the inventory.
Once you finish setting up product stock in Magento 2, don't forget to Save Config.
Change Stock Status in Bulk
After you set the Out-of-Stock Threshold, Magento will mark your products as out of stock automatically. However, sometimes you might need to do that before a product reaches the threshold or to mark it as back in stock.
Doing that for each product one by one takes a while. But there is a solution. You can change stock status in bulk for multiple products at once.
Set Up Out of Stock Notifications
Customer experience is one of the most important factors in eCommerce. So to stand out you have to provide outstanding service and pay attention to every detail, product stock status in particular.
To provide that you have to configure the notifications about products' stock statuses. So, neither you forget to restock the inventory, nor your customers miss the opportunity to purchase the desired product.
Product Alerts for Customers
When customers come to your Magento 2 store, they find a perfect product, get excited about it and then see it is out of stock.
Will they leave and try to find the same product somewhere else?
Probably.
However, you can still make them come back by configuring product stock alerts. Customer can subscribe to the "notify me when back in stock" messages and receive notifications when products are back in stock.
This way you stay in touch with your potential customers and also keep them engaged.
Admin Low Stock Email
Instead of making your potential customers wait for the products, you can make sure all products are always in stock with the low stock email notifications.
You can configure email notifications about low stock for admin users or store representatives with the Magento 2 Admin Email Notifications extension. If there is a certain number of products left (which you set in the configurations) the admin receives a CSV file with all products that need restocking.
So, once you configure stock status for products in your Magento 2 store, don't forget to keep your inventory in stock to satisfy your customers and provide them with great shopping experience.
